Hale (strong, healthy).

Helve. Derbyshire.

To heed.

Horseblock. Lancashire.

Quandary. Various.

Ramshackle Hampshire.

To scotch (a wheel). Lancashire.

Sleepers (beams of a floor).

Spare (thin).

It must always be remembered that one of these glossaries dates back seventy-two years and the other nearly a hundred; both belonging to a period when railroads were not, and when the different parts of England were more detached for social purposes than London and Edinburgh are now. Since then these dialects have been so intermingled by contact that it surprises us to hear that such words as slim and gawky were ever regarded as local. It is yet more astonishing to find in these old lists words that are usually regarded as recent London slang - thus the too-too of æstheticism, which Grose reports as used in the North of England in 1790, being "used absolutely, for very well, or good." Another such phrase is the word safe as one hears it in London to-day, and as it was also heard in Cumberland in Grose's time, in the sense of certain. "He is safe enough for being hanged" is Grose's illustration; but I was out in a boat on the Thames with a young Londoner and his family, eight years ago, when he impetuously called out to his wife, "My dear, if you let those boys sit there, they are safe to be overboard in five minutes." Sometimes we come upon phrases in these old glossaries too poetic to be forgotten, as where the afternoon in the North of England was called undern, that is undernoon, or where in Gloucester the openings left in steeples and towers for the admission of light were called dreamholes, as if wandering dreams drifted through them. In other cases we find grotesque confusions of thought such as

now come to us only through the medium of the kitchen. Un is defined as him by Grose, who adds that this is "particularly [in] Hampshire, where everything is masculine except a boar-cat, which is always called she." In reading this I was reminded of certain handmaidens in my own household, who, after rejoicing all winter in the supposed masculinity of a favorite cat and the consequent freedom from all fears of an increase of family, came to me with the indignant announcement, the other day, "He's got a litter of kittens, Sir."

If the result of this inquiry into the origin of our dialect is not just what was expected, it must be said that it does not in the least impair the value of our President's argument as to the debt of New England and America to the Kentish institutions. So complex and difficult are all matters of local derivation that it is no uncommon thing in history for the evidence of language to point one way and that of institutions and habits another. So far as these two early glossaries are concerned, their analysis would seem to show that the similarity of character which has been so often pointed out between New Englanders and Scotchmen is to be traced in language as well-for a large part of these North of England phrases border closely on the Lowland Scotch of Scott and Burns. It is a curious fact that the British visitors to this country who have most readily comprehended our character and ways have repeatedly been Scotchmen-among whom are conspicuous George Combe in the last generation and Professor Bryce and Sir George Campbell in the present. In many respects, certainly, we seem more like Scotchmen than Kentishmen. Nor is this in any respect a phrase of discouragement. Even Dr. Johnson admitted that much might be made out of a Scotchman if he could only be caught young; and as most of these present to-day were caught in America at as early a period of their age as it is possible to catch any one, there is certainly hope for all of us.

PROCEEDINGS.

ANNUAL MEETING, OCTOBER 21, 1886, AT THE HALL OF THE SOCIETY IN WORCESTER.

THE President, the Hon. GEORGE F. HOAR, LL.D., in the chair.

The following members were present (the names being arranged in order of seniority of membership): George E. Ellis, Edward E. Hale, Charles Deane, George F. Hoar, William S. Barton, Andrew P. Peabody, George Chandler, Nathaniel Paine, Joseph Sargent, Stephen Salisbury, P. Emory Aldrich, Samuel A. Green, Elijah B. Stoddard, George S. Paine, William A. Smith, Francis H. Dewey, James F. Hunnewell, John D. Washburn, Ben: Perley Poore, Edward H. Hall, Albert H. Hoyt, Reuben A. Guild, Charles C. Smith, Edmund M. Barton, Lucius R. Paige, Franklin B. Dexter, Charles A. Chase, Samuel S. Green, Justin Winsor, Henry W. Haynes, Edward I. Thomas, Horatio Rogers, Frederick W. Putnam, Solomon Lincoln, Andrew McF. Davis, J. Evarts Greene, Henry S. Nourse, William B. Weeden, Ebenezer Cutler, Reuben Colton, William W. Rice, Henry H. Edes, Grindall Reynolds, Frederick J. Kingsbury, George E. Francis.

On motion of Colonel SOLOMON LINCOLN the reading of the records of the last meeting was dispensed with and the record declared approved.

The Recording Secretary reported from the Council their recommendation of the following named gentlemen for membership in the Society:

Mr. LUCIEN CARR, of Cambridge.

FRANK PALMER GOULDING, Esq., of Worcester.

Each of these gentlemen was declared elected, a separate ballot having been taken on each name.

CHARLES DEANE, LL.D., read a report which had been drawn up by him and adopted by the Council as a part of their report to the Society, NATHANIEL PAINE, Esq., Treasurer, presented his report in print, and EDMUND M. BARTON, Esq., Librarian, read his report, -all the above together constituting the report of the Council.

Col. JOHN D. WASHBURN, referring to that part of the report of the Council which announced a large gift of money to the Society, made the following motion, which was unanimously adopted:

That the Society accept with grateful acknowledgment the gift of five thousand dollars made by their second VicePresident, STEPHEN SALISBURY, Esq., as an addition to the Salisbury Building Fund, reminded by this generous act of the unnumbered benefits conferred on the Society by his honored father, which have identified his name with its welfare and prosperity, and made for him a precious and enduring memory.

On motion of the same gentleman the Report of the Council was referred to the Committee of Publication.

JUSTIN WINSOR, Esq., in seconding the motion for reference, said that the suggestion of the Librarian as to the preservation of newspapers brought to mind a matter of great importance. He had been informed that so much clay is used in the manufacture of paper at the present day that their preservation for a century is extremely doubtful. He thought that it might be advantageous for the Society to make some arrangements with the publishers of the leading journals for the printing of a few copies of each issue on material that could be preserved.

Mr. HALE said that in connection with the Library and the report upon it, he wished again to call attention to the invaluable work of our associate, Mr. BEN: PERLEY POORE, in the preparation of the wonderful descriptive catalogue of government publications. This masterly index was fitly

alluded to in the Librarian's Report of last April, but Mr. HALE said that it seemed to him that the literary journals. of the country had hardly paid sufficient attention to it. In truth, it multiplies manifold the value of any collection of public documents, whether large or small, and as there is in the world no complete collection of our documents, the value of such a catalogue is all the greater. Mr. POORE says that he has been fettered by the failure of the government to give him the proper assistance, and he seems to apprehend that very many errors will be found in his work. Many errors there must be in a book involving so many details unless, by good luck, it be made by archangels. But Mr. HALE felt bound to say that having used it since its publication, perhaps more than any other man, in connection with his work on the Stevens collection of Franklin papers, he had yet to discover the least omission or mistake.

Hon. Mr. HOAR, in confirming Mr. HALE's remarks, called attention to the important literary work done by Mr. POORE in his collection of the American Constitutions and Charters. This work has been done very thoroughly and contains a mass of historical and political information much of which could not be obtained elsewhere but by a visit to the capitals of the respective states.

Dr. ELLIS said:

A suggestion has come to my mind while I have been listening with much satisfaction to the admirable paper in which Dr. DEANE has so thoroughly and successfully met and answered the slanderous and false charges made against Massachusetts in the Senate of the United States, as having originally engaged in a brisk and profitable slave traffic, and after the Emancipation Act having sold her slaves to the South. The suggestion came in the form of a question whether the repelling evidence of facts which Dr. DEANE has presented as referring to Massachusetts was equally applicable to all New England. For as our associate has